On June 2nd, I received my invite from Adamo to join Plurk. You may be asking: “Why another micro-blogging site? Is the honeymoon with Twitter over?” Not at all, except I understand its shortcomings and the recent rash of problems was driving me over the edge (you must understand, addiction is a nasty thing). So I accepted Adamo’s invitation and signed up to Plurk – comments made so far is that it is a Twitter clone and that it isn’t. Users and non-users alike are talking about it … “I’ll never use it” to “I love Plurk”… “a lot more noise” to “more social/fun” (compared to Twitter) … “user interface is neat” to “UI is very confusing”.
From an end-user’s perspective I have discovered the following:
since many friends are new on (read, early adopters of) Plurk (even though they use Twitter), I tend to talk to more strangers and socialize more
I read many more replies. Given you can’t filter responses to get notices only if someone else replies to a post to which you have also replied, I get lost in looking at the extensive conversations.
I read more replies because it is easy to see the entire “conversation” - See Robert Scoble’s
I friend people randomly. And no it’s not ‘cause I want more karma…I’m good being in a state of maintenance.
I friend people indiscriminately. Since profiles aren’t detailed, if someone friends me, I do the same.
Content of Plurk posts tend to be a cross between Twitter, MySpace, Facebook
Things I’d like to comment on about Plurk:
the ability to include video and images in Plurk is cool. I don’t like that the pop-up box disappears if you click on anything else.
The timeline is really not conducive to tracking anything. Really easy for me to lose friends or find certain posts that I had read or commented on previously.
Responses tend to take on a life of their own and you could discover some really interesting conversations that have nothing to do with the original post.
I’m going to stop here for now. As far as first impressions go, I’ve decided to stay awhile and determine where this will take me. At some point, I will provide a comparison between Twitter (and no, we’re not cheating ) and Plurk, if I think it’s worthwhile. In the meantime, see the following posts:
if you would like to try social|median, use the invite code “iVenus”. Still have a few left.
I’ve met some amazing people on Twitter and from each person I have listened, learned, discovered equally as much about them, world events, possibilities and myself. According to Robert Scoble I’m discovering the secret to Twitter
I have, in particular, learned to appreciate the Twitterers who live in different time zones. I’m sure you too have had the great experience of waking up and reading tweets over coffee and learning about many things to which, generally, you wouldn’t be privy were it not for Twitter. Let me give you a few examples.
The morning of March 6 last I woke up and read a recent post by @Frenz advising that CommonCraft had released their why Twitter video within hours of its release.
Weeks ago, @pandemia advised on April 29 that www.socialmedia.com was providing open code to test it in private invite-only alpha. So, I took advantage of it and signed up.
I’m really social|median & how easy it is to clip and share personalized news and information…not everything updated by RSS feeds. Every morning, I get an email telling me what’s new…people from around the globe, who have been up for hours already, clip news & other info that they found worth sharing. What has been truly wonderful about this is that I get a chuckle out of tweets saying “read this” and linking to an article that was clipped on social|median days earlier. It is always nice to know that sometimes I can be ahead of the game.
If you want to try social|median, send them a tweet, requesting an invite and tell them @iVenus sent you (for the week of May 12, the valid code was “London”… so if you are reading this Fri, Sat or Sun, May 16-18, it may just work)
And of course, the tragic news of the earthquake in Sichuan China…yes, I learned of that from @scobleizer’s early morning tweets, retweeting tweets on GoogleTalk posted by people in China about an earthquake happening right then and there. I won’t even continue about this…
What does all this mean? Other than, like many others I am a Twitter addict, I am also learning so much from so many interesting and informative Twitterers locally and from around the world (and how many continue to make me smile hourly daily). Still learning how to juggle a growing following and increasing the peeps I follow. Just the same, I strongly urge everyone to test the Twitter air…get out there are fly!
A number of weeks ago, Melanie McBride suggested that I make some noise about Web 2.0 technologies and user rights. I am an avid user of these technologies who appreciates the level of engagement of social media, and a scholar who would like to continue to implement these computer-mediated communication tools as regular instruments to my foreign language teaching and learning repertoire.
Last fall, after exploring Facebook for a number of months, I was put off by it for a number of reasons, in particular the excessive spam continuously received after adding modules…and that was extremely frustrating given that the modules are fantastic and that is one of the greatest features of FB. OK, I am sure there is an academic use of FB that I could have contrived, but I tired of it before I could investigate it further and develop something. In addition to this, a NY Times article from December 2007, I posed the question “Is Facebook Public?” and found this concern to be quite valid as a researcher/scholar. Then, with other FB issues “Leaving is hard to do” as a former user I do feel that I have no rights.
So then, what options to I have? Not to participate? That would be wholly unacceptable to me, as I am a technophile / Web 2.0 aficionado. There is a call to create a personal policy that gives users rights and real options (I strongly urge you all to complete the survey Social media: Essential user controls) because we have every right to control and own what we choose to share. We tend to show greater ownership when it comes to e-commerce but not social media. I wonder why?
P.S. Did you ever notice that after you delete a tweet on Twitter, it actually doesn’t “disappear”… compare my archived tweets of less than 48 hours ago….
today and tomorrow represent two anxious days of voting in Italy. comparing the two main candidates, leaders of the PD (democratic party) and PDL (recently formed people of liberty) respectively, La Stampa compares these leading candidates in a manner that shows perhaps there are some ‘differences’ between the two. How would you interpret these signs?
[updated: April 16] gapingvoid is back on Twitter! LOL
over a month ago, I had stumbled across the blog of hugh macleod and took a moment to laugh at myself. of course, one thing leads to another then we started following each other on twitter. This morning I noticed he was not tweeting about alpine TX or his book deal, actually he deleted his twitter account. From avid twitterer (’cause it does get addictive) to deleted twitterer overnight? i was a bit surprised…
the reality of twitter is this: twitter is becoming the next big thing, the it girl, because it is the new communication tool for business (e.g., JetBlue), politics (e.g., Obama), news (e.g., NY times), academia (i.e., my work), and, of course, schmoozing (everyone else who uses it regularly). We use this social networking service to make connections, to collaborate, to discover, to learn in a way that wasn’t possible before this type of tool. A friend mentioned yesterday that news from silicone valley, for example, that previously would take a few days to break (via other forms of communication), is now instantaneous.
of late, twitter has been making some upgrades, simplifying its layout somewhat. it’s not perfect, could use some more improvements (e.g., it apparently loses some replies somewhere out there in the twittosphere) but it is readily accessible via web, OS applications (twhirl, twitterific, spaz), browser apps (firefox), desktop platforms (netvibes, pageflakes), widgets for blogs, facebook, etc., and, last but not least, mobile phones. This accessibility, the 11+ million users (ok, not all regular twitterers), makes twitter worth exploring.
All I have to do now is convince the 18,000 students who attend the university, and the majority of our faculty and staff … no small task.
At a social function on Saturday evening, an article from Carnegie Mellon’s alumni magazine was brought to my attention. An alumna talked about a 46 year old professor of computer science, Randy Pausch, who is terminally ill and gave his last lecture in September as part of the university’s Journey series.
As soon as I got in, I watched all 76+ minutes of the lecture, but give you instead this video for a quick overview of the talk. If you want the entire lecture, it is right here.
Why it struck me? The professor in me is very empathetic … someone who has achieved so much in a career that I too chose, well, how can I not want to hear what he has to say. In addition, a recent post on a blog about career choices, well, it makes me ask many (far too many, perhaps) questions. Pausch entitled his talk Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. In my humble opinion, some noteworthy quotes are (from transcript):
One of the things he told me was that wait long enough and people will surprise and impress you. He said, when you’re pissed off at somebody and you’re angry at them, you just haven’t given them enough time. Just give them a little more time and they’ll almost always impress you.
And that’s one of the reasons you should all become professors. Because you can have your cake and eat it too.
Go get a Ph.D. Become a professor.
And I said, why?
And he said, because you are such a good salesman that any company that gets you is going to use you as a salesman. And you might as well be selling something worthwhile like education.
Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.
Where does inspiration come from? Well, I have to say this address gave me some…just enough to overcome some of my own fears and appreciate what I do have. Maybe my career choice and my childhood dreams may actually be one in the same.I can’t wait for the day when I can have my cake though
An Italian twitterer, Elyl, successfully defended her dissertation at approximately 5:00 p.m., her time. And, the beauty of it all is that before the dissertation, we all cheered her on and after, we happily celebrated with her, from Italy & other countries, from across the ocean too.
Today, Elyl posted a thank you on her blog to all her Twitter following and said (translation mine):
If ever anyone should ask you “What’s the purpose of Twitter?” … tell him to take a look at the links [the Tweets she received] Seven months ago, I hardly knew any of the people linked; yesterday they were all with me, beside me, supporting me and rejoicing with me on this my happiest of days…
Playing catch-up this morning on Twitter, Frenz linked this video, which I think is a very easy way of illustrating (literally!) Twitter to answer to all those people who ask: “Why Twitter?”.
Jonathan Chambers made a comment about the twitter family yesterday and I have to say, lately, I have been enjoying this family immensely.
My students and Twitterers from Italy have started communicating and I am just overjoyed … kinda pathetic actually how happy I am! What do we do next, well, that is my research component and I can’t reveal all my plans: un po di’ fantasia!
In early 2007, I joined Twitter, one of the many social networking and micro-blogging services. According to Wikipedia, Twitter
allows users to send “updates” (or “tweets”; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, or a third-party application
in italiano, anche da Wikipedia… Twitter è un network e un servizio di micro-blog che permette agli utenti di mandare aggiornamenti (messaggi di testo, lunghi non più di 140 caratteri) via SMS, messaggeria istantanea, email, il sito di Twitter, o un’applicazione come Twitterrific.
One of the things I have noticed is that many Italians use Twitter, which has been indirectly supported by Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere Report that rates Italian as the 4th most used language in posts.I’ve decided to experiment this semester with my students…will their use of Twitter in Italian help improve their communication in Italian? I believe if they have an actual environment that makes their use of Italian seem “real”, they will be more likely to voluntarily use the language outside of the classroom environment with their peers and possibly “real Italians” (and I hope to be able to plead with some of my Italian Twitter friends to join in on this experiment).For the time being, I have structured this experiment as follows:
We have class on Mondays & Wednesdays. They must Twitter in Italian on two other weekdays (their choice of Tuesdays, Thursdays or Fridays).
They must also, once a week, reply to a Tweet of one of their peers, so that a communication of sorts occurs.
So they use Twitter 3x a week…maybe, they might get hooked and find they want to create Tweets more often (perhaps for extra-credit). Perhaps they will not be intimidated by writing in Italian because of the 140-character limitation imposed by Twitter. Maybe, just maybe, they will be inclined to find other Italian “twitteri” and follow them. Perhaps, they will understand that learning a language is more than just the words but also the rich culture which underlies it. Many maybes…let’s see what the semester brings.
) and Plurk, if I think it’s worthwhile. In the meantime, see the following posts:
